Chapter 5 Anna
ANNA
He lied.
That’s the only explanation for why I heard Cap call out the fact that it was time for church. Didn’t he send text messages to everyone?
That hurt more than I wanted to admit.
“Oh, fuck this,” I mumbled as I shoved my way out of my room.
I stormed down the hallway, shoulders rolled back and head held high.
If they called church, then I was going to be part of it.
Hell, I helped with these efforts this entire time.
I deserved to be part of those meetings just like my brother’s crew deserved it.
So when I saw the congregation of men heading toward the front door of the clubhouse, I fell in line with them.
My brother turned around and held out his hand. “You know you can’t be part of this meeting.”
“I don’t care,” I said with a shake of my head.
He crooked an eyebrow. “Go back and be with the girls. Keep watch over them. They—”
I tried to shove past my brother, but he grabbed my shoulders. He slowly led me back to the position where I stood while the rest of the men slipped around him, heading outside.
“I’m going to be part of that meeting, Kay,” I said as I looked up at my older brother.
He didn’t budge. “No, you’re not. You’re going to stay safe like the rest of the women—”
I slapped his hands away. “What the fuck is this? Some kind of ding-a-ling club? I’ve helped you assholes front to back this entire fucking way when all you wanted to do was ice me the fuck out in the beginning.
I had to shoulder my way into that conversation then, and I’ll shoulder my way into it now. ”
“Anna, you can’t—”
“You’re not going to get away with lying to me!” I exclaimed.
Everything fell silent around us. Everyone stopped. My brother wrinkled up his face as I drew in a sobering breath through my nose, and his hands slid from my arms to my own hands. He took mine within his, and I just looked away from him.
I hated them all.
“I haven’t lied to you,” he said, his voice a bit lower than usual. “What are you—?”
I ripped my hands out of his. “Fine. Enjoy your meeting.”
I stormed away before he had a chance to say anything.
I pressed my back against it and just stood there, jaw tight, waiting for the anger to settle into something I could work with.
I slammed my bedroom door closed behind me.
I pressed my back against the door and stood there in the silence of my room for a second.
Down the hall, I heard one of the girls ask somebody for water.
Just that. Just water. A small, quiet ask like she wasn’t sure she was allowed to make it.
I closed my eyes. I’d been going sideways at these men all day, and she was in there just trying to ask for a glass of water.
I pushed off the door, grabbed the water bottle off my nightstand, and walked it down the hall before I could talk myself out of it.
Knocked twice. Slid it under the door when nobody answered.
Then I went back to my room and didn’t say a word about it to anyone.
I went to perch at the window.
I watched from the only window my room afforded as my brother led the guys over to the shed on the property.
Ah. So that was where they were doing their church meetings around here.
I watched Brutus hold the door open for everyone, looking around like they were going to be attacked any second.
Once my brother slipped inside after everyone else, Brutus ushered him in, then gave one last look around before he slipped inside himself.
I moved like lightning.
I didn’t care about their rules or their macho way of living.
I would have information that I wanted at my disposal, and they couldn’t stop me from that shit.
If they thought they could manage me the way they managed everything else around here, tuck me into a corner and keep me quiet and out of the room where the real decisions got made, they had another fucking thing coming.
I silenced my footsteps as I slipped out the back door, keeping to the shadows.
Though, I didn’t have to do much. The shed didn’t have any windows or anything like that, despite the fact that it was large enough to park all of the bikes safely with space.
I wondered what side of the shed they congregated on.
There was only one entrance, and I hoped they weren’t standing right in front of the fucking doors.
But once I got to the shed doors without any fuss, I pressed my ear to it.
I heard every single fucking thing happening inside.
“All right,” Cap said, “we heard from our contact at the DOJ, and we need to talk.”
Oooooh, this was going to be good.
“How are you guys contacting them again?” my brother asked.
“Email,” I heard Wrecker say.
Brutus’s voice rumbled forth, but it was so deep that between the wind kicking up through the trees and the insulated wood of the finished shed, I couldn’t make out what he said.
“You’re fucking kidding me,” Scout said.
But whatever he had said, it was apparently juicy.
Fuck his deep voice.
“Nope, not kidding,” Cap said. “Ranger, did you print out those emails?”
Ranger snickered. “Not in the half an hour that all of this has transpired, no. But I can.”
“Go. Get them printed. I want everyone to have a copy so that we can all look at it together.”
Wait, he was leaving the shed?
Fuck, I had to scramble.
I ripped myself up from the ramp that led into the shed from the dirt ground and I tiptoed as quickly as I could around the corner of the shed.
I heard the door rip open before the long-haired, bearded tech guy lumbered down the ramp with Smoke padding silently at his heel, murmuring something to himself that I couldn’t catch.
I also saw Brutus’s heavy shadow lingering out the open shed door from around the corner.
I heard his low, mumbled voice.
“Cap’s not looking, get in here.”
I froze before I slowly peeked around the corner and found that asshole already staring where he knew I was.
“What?” I whispered.
“Get in,” he mouthed before he peeked back into the storage shed.
I sure as fuck didn’t have to be told twice, either.
Though I was still pissed at him for lying straight to my goddamn face.
“Thanks,” I whispered.
He just shook his head and stepped with me so that his massive body covered mine. His shadow cloaked away what his body didn’t, and when he closed the shed door, he backed up against me.
Step by step.
I was practically shoved into a corner that he perched in.
Jesus Christ, it’s cramped in here.
I noticed that everyone was basically on the other side of the shed, gathered around Cap and my brother.
So why the fuck was Brutus in the corner?
I mean, sure, I’d only been part of one church meeting and he was in a corner then as well.
But I figured he just didn’t want to be cramped up with all of the guys.
There was plenty of space inside of this shed, since it had to house all of my brother’s crews’ bikes at once.
The fuck was he doing all the way over here, then?
There wasn’t much that happened until Ranger got back. Mostly, I sweated like a fucking hog with Brutus’s body heat trapping me against the shed wall. Sure, the damn shed was insulated and shit from the weather, but it wasn’t like there was central air in the thing, you know?
My clothes stuck to me by the time Ranger got back with the emails, Smoke dropping soundlessly at his feet the second he stopped moving.
“Thanks,” Brutus mumbled as he got handed a piece of paper.
“All right,” Cap said once Ranger had divvied out the emails, “I’ll give you time to read the email string before we talk.”
“Holy fucking shit,” I heard my brother say.
“Looks like someone reads quickly,” Wrecker said.
I heard the grin in his voice while the rest of my brother’s crew members grumbled all sorts of things to themselves.
“Jesus Christ.”
“And this is legit?”
“You’ve double-checked this out?”
“The hell? We’ve been deputized?”
Deputized? What in the fuck was going on?
“No,” Cap said, “The Iron Battalion have been deputized. At least, that’s how we interpret this. But that doesn’t mean you guys can’t help.”
“What the hell do we do now that you guys have been deputized by the fucking DOJ?” my brother asked.
My jaw hit the floor. What in the fuck happened?
What in the hell did I miss? I wanted to ask so many questions, but I wasn’t in a position to be able to.
I think I hated that more than being left out.
Why? Because it only reinforced the fact that I was left out multiple times, despite helping these asshats keep their fuckbuckets safe.
Okay, I shouldn’t refer to the women like that.
But still.
“We’ll do what we can, but we don’t wanna rock whatever it is you guys have going on,” my brother said.
“Here’s the working plan,” Cap began, “as you can see in the emails, it takes the DOJ time to get together the proper files and deputize a team to come down here and investigate. So while they’re doing that, we’re going to be doing everything on our end to make things as smooth and as official as possible. ”
Wrecker took the reins. “That means we are going to file police reports with every precinct that guards a side of the state park.”
“Oh hell yeah, we can do that,” my brother said.
“We figured you guys would be okay with that,” Brutus said.
Cap continued. “Staying above board and keeping this legal means that whatever information we find from the microphones and cameras that have been planted, we can’t act on.
Right now, we’re in gathering mode. We can establish groups within the crews that will handle the filing of the police reports, but first we need a comprehensive list of all the precincts that help with patrolling and keeping the state park safe.
“I can get that for us tonight,” Ranger said.
“Perfect,” Cap said. “Scout.”
“Yeah, Cap?”
“I need you to be Ranger’s point person. Every time he finds something worth documenting, you’re in charge of keeping those records. You’re the most organized out of all of us. Can you do that?”
“Of course, Cap.”
“Ghost,” Wrecker said.
“I know, I know,” the masked man piped up from somewhere to my left, “watch the cameras and microphone captures during the evenings while Ranger keeps tabs on them during the day.”
“And don’t you forget it,” Cap said, “Devil’s Legion?
” I practically heard the backs of my brother’s crew straighten on the other side of the shed.
“You’ll keep up your regular patrols that you’re already doing.
We’ll keep up the interchanging schedule of both crews keeping this place safe.
Though, I’ll want to rearrange the teams a little bit now that everyone has a job to focus on. ”
“We can hash that out over some food,” my brother said.
“There’s also one more thing I want to ask of you guys, if at all possible,” Cap said.
“Name it,” my brother said without hesitation.
As much as my brother pissed me off, that man was ride or die with some of the people in his life.
I always admired him for that.
“It’s been a while since our businesses in Redd Valley had any sort of patrol on them,” Cap said. “We’ve stayed away for safety purposes and letting our staff open and close on the regular, but I’m getting worried that we’ve been away for too long for them to stay properly safe.”
My brother chuckled. “You want me to put a daily patrol together of my men? So we can keep tabs on things on your end of town?”
“Doesn’t have to be every day, or even every night,” Cap said. “Just enough that we know those assholes aren’t going after the innocent people that work for us.”
“Smart,” Brutus mumbled in front of me.
I wanted to slap his back and tell him to shut up and stop drawing attention to us.
“And if you can leave your jackets behind,” Wrecker added, “even better. We don’t want you guys to become targets, just in case.”
“Consider it done,” my brother said. “I’ll have a patrol schedule for both the safehouse and your businesses by the morning. Just need to know how many businesses we’re patrolling, names, and addresses.”
“You’ll have it,” Cap said. “Brutus.”
I held my breath and froze as I practically felt all eyes turn to our direction. Brutus didn’t seem fazed, though.
“Yeah, Boss?”
Cap didn’t hesitate. “Your job is still going to be to stay here and guard these women from any last-minute attacks. Now that we know that the ring is trying to get to them, I can’t afford to pull you away from this house.”
“Understood,” Brutus rumbled in front of me.
Without hesitation.
A shiver worked its way through my body for reasons I wasn’t willing to entertain. It was very chivalrous, how he didn’t even complain about protecting us. My brother? He would’ve bitched and moaned and groaned the entire time about being benched. He hated not being in on the action.
Brutus seemed almost… content.
With protecting us.
It was very chivalrous of him.
“And Anna?” Cap asked.
I froze.
Fuck.
He knew I was here?
I slowly peeked out from behind Brutus and saw my brother glaring at me. I smiled sheepishly and waved.
“Hey, Cap,” I said.
He pointed at me. “Your job is to lay low and not cause any trouble. And if you can, help the new woman Brutus found to settle in a bit. I hear from King she’s struggling.”
I stepped out from behind Brutus with a grin on my face. I crossed my arms over my chest. “I’ll have her laughing up a storm by the morning. Is she a fan of pickles? We just got a fresh jar.”
“Jesus Christ,” Brutus groaned.
It made me giggle.
Which, for some reason, only made my brother glare harder.
I stuck my tongue out at him, much to the chuckling amusement of his crew. But even still, he had that look of disappointment on his face. The muted anger that I always remembered my father carrying around whenever he was perturbed at something Mom had done.
Whatever.
If he wanted to be a stick in the mud, then so be it.
“All right,” Cap said with a nod of his head as he turned to the rest of the guys. “Is there anything else anyone wants to discuss?”
Silence followed.
“Any questions?” he asked.
And again, silence.
“Then,” he said as he picked up his hands and clapped three times, “church dismissed.”
I clapped three times along with The Iron Battalion while my brother just let out the rhythmic whistle he always did when meetings were dismissed.
Now, to gossip with all of the girls about what I’d found out.